Why you DON'T want an iPhone 3G?

When the original iPhone hit the market it was a big success. Like most Apple products, the hype was sufficient to many people to want it. I'm not telling you it's not a great product. But it's far from perfect.

It could not be different with the newer iPhone 3G. The successor of the original iPhone took advantage of the huge success of the original iPhone. It fixes some of the first generation iPhone defects but has some of its own.

iPhone 3G can be worth buying for some people, but ignoring the hype, you have to consider the options before signing a long contract just to have a phone. Many times your needs can be satisfied (sometimes better) with a Symbian, BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device. That's almost sure if you are looking for business oriented features.

Bad GPS navigation

Remember that people replacing devices with the iPhone 3G? Maybe it can be a perfect replacement for iPod or other MP3 player, for your old phone and even for your notebook in some situations (for light browsing, for example). But even it having GPS capabilities, replace your working GPS device by the iPhone may be not a good idea.

Users report that using iPhone 3G as a car navigator requires you to continuously look at the device screen, as it will not trace the routes precisely as a GPS device would and the application does not have the ability to talk directions. It's better to use your old GPS.

Battery

iPhone 3G batteries replacement isn't easy. Although it have removable batteries, you have to remove screws on the phone to take the battery. On most of the other manufacturer's phones all you have to do is remove the back plate (sometimes requiring you only one hand), get the old battery, put the new battery in place. No tools required. Just your hands. Getting new batteries from Apple is most expensive than other manufacturer's as well.

Battery life is poor for continuous use. If you consider how many features this phone has, it's difficult not to use it continuously, as many people use it to replace some devices that has each one a function. 3G networks requires even more power than GSM and EDGE networks require, which itself makes the battery life decrease. Besides not being optimal, battery life is not the strength of most smartphones, with their big screens, high speed processors and typical network usage.

Copy and paste

One of the most widely used feature on the computing world is still not included on the device. Bad idea for a device with such computing capabilities (full browser, e-mail etc).

Applications

Apple has its AppStore with iPhone software. But it's a limited space for limited developers. Symbian for example have tons of software over the internet, most of them available free of charge. The fact that Symbian is older helps, but not having a restrictive policy as Apple does helps even more. Symbian is a much more open platform to developers, and it reflects in the size of available software library.

Poor multitasking

Users coming from basic handsets may never notice that, or even notice that now they have multitasking, which obviously was not possible on their old basic phone. But most experienced users may note that iPhone multitasking is very limited, as only Apple built-in apps can run on background.

Apple locking policies

Apple doesn't want you to use your iPhone with carriers other than that you bought it from. It also did not want it on the first iPhone times. Users who unlocked their phones unofficially had to keep unlocking it again and again, every time Apple tried to disable unlocked devices.

If you're not concerned about that, it's OK, but most people are not satisfied for not being owner of a product they have bought.